The Muralist
by Cubist One
Summary: She showed up at the same time every day, sitting there and staring at the wall. Gaara didn't know it at the time, but this strange woman was going to flying-brick her way into his life.
1. Chapter 1

**The Muralist**

Chapter One

Six years had gone by since the Great War. The Joint Shinobi Army was won out in the end, though it came with a price to be paid in blood. People died. By the thousands. Families were shattered, homes destroyed, cities laid to waste. For the first two years, the wails of mourning and cries for revenge – though on what, no one knew, Madara had been slain – could still be heard throughout the land. The first years were chaos. It was almost as if the war were still ongoing, though the enemy was gone.

But through it all, they emerged, better, stronger, and more ready to see what peace could bring them. It may have taken years, but things were finally looking normal again in the Shinobi world.

Kazekage duties were finally winding down, Gaara reflected, settling into the more sedate (though he mightn't have realized it at the time) work of the years before the war. The army had been, for the most part, disbanded, so his duties as Commander General had come to an end as well. Although, like every other member of the army still alive, he still kept the forehead protector in a place of honor, ready to be used again should another threat ever descend on their world.

Of course, that didn't mean things were all fun and games. There was still work to be done, missions to assign, and the general humdrum of watching over life in Suna.

He did have the occasional ten minutes free, however.

In that time, he'd taken to staring out his window. He wasn't just looking at nothing, though, as he had been so apt to do in the old days. Now, there was something happening down there.

It involved an old, white wall that, until now, had simply been sitting there, reflecting the sunlight from an empty, abandoned building. No one thought much about it. Who would? It was a wall. Nobody cares about a simple wall.

Or so they had thought.

About two months ago, the now twenty-year-old Kazekage had noticed someone who apparently _did_ care. The person in question was a young woman, probably only a year or two younger than him. She showed up every day at the same time, about noon, caring a portable radio system and a sketchbook, sat down in front of the wall, and proceeded to draw. There was nothing extraordinary about her to make her stick in his memory. Her hair was dark brown and short, falling only midway between her chin and shoulders. Her eyes were an average shade of hazel, not very large and not very small. She wasn't tall or short, or fat or thin. She was just _there_. Every single day, when he looked out his window in the afternoon, he knew he'd see her there. On weekends, she brought a young boy, maybe eight, who played with other children nearby while she worked. When she wasn't there, Gaara found himself wondering where she was instead. It was almost to the point where the young Kazekage figured he could set his watch by the time the nameless artist appeared and left.

It wasn't until about a week ago that he finally learned what it was she was doing all those afternoons she spent staring at a wall in the baking sun.

She wanted to paint a mural. After a month and two weeks of careful planning, based off a concept she'd had for about a year, she was ready to submit her design to be approved. After all, she did need permission. She couldn't just show up with paint cans and start marking up the wall across from the Kazekage building, doing that would be graffiti.

It took a while for it to be approved. The council didn't think the submission of great importance, so they stuck it at the very bottom of Gaara's (rather full) inbox. He only found it before the year was out because he the corner of a colorful sheet of paper sticking out. Curious, he'd pulled it out – almost causing a paper avalanche in the process, but fortunately he had his sand to prevent that – and examined it. It was an intricate drawing of Suna, from a bird's eye view slightly behind the Kazekage building. At first, he was a bit surprised to find that the nameless artist had drawn him in, standing on top of the building with his back turned, looking out over the village.

He examined the picture for few minutes, surprised by how detailed it was. If he looked closely, he could see figures walking through the streets, or lounging on the rooftops as some villagers were apt to do when it started to cool off in the evening. Then, he realized that if this was in his inbox, there must be some kind of document accompanying it. So he dug through the papers – once again, almost causing a landslide – and finally found what he was looking for, lying alone at the very bottom of the basket. As he took it out, he reflected with a wry smile that it had been a long time since he'd seen the wicker of the basket.

He recognized the document format right away. It was a submission for a project in the city, written out rather sloppily in bright red pencil – perhaps the same one used to color the illustration.

At that moment, there came a loud knock on the door and Kankuro came strolling in before being invited, hoisting himself up to sit on the windowsill. "Hey, little bro. Still keeping yourself locked up in here, huh?"

Gaara glared at Kankuro, slightly peeved at him for messing up his concentration. The puppet master grinned cheekily back, ever-present purple paint distorting into new shapes with his expression. "So, what is so important that you haven't set foot out here for four hours?"

Gaara looked back down at the desk, at picked up the mural design. He stared at it for a moment, before holding it out to Kankuro. "Take a look at this."

Kankuro took the paper and whistled slowly, his eyes going wide. "Wow. Talk about detailed." He held the paper close to his face and squinted at it. "Hey, is that you I see there?" He asked, popping his out from behind the paper and grinning.

Gaara shrugged. "Probably. I am the only person who'd be standing on top of this building wearing Kazekage robes."

Kankuro nodded, and stared back at the paper. "What is this, anyway? It's pretty cool."

"Someone wants to paint a mural on that building." The red-headed Kazekage said, pointing out the window.

The puppeteer tossed the paper back down on his little brother's desk. "I think you should let them. It'd be good for the city. And it certainly would improve the view."

And so Gaara did.

Two days later, Gaara looked out his window in the early morning and was surprised to see the dark-haired artist already there, and this time carrying a can of black paint. The Kazekage frowned, watching as the girl opened the can and took a small brush out of her back pocket. When she started painting on the wall, he finally connected the dots. All along she'd been planning the mural. She must've only been coming in the afternoons before because she had a job, but now that she was working on an official project for the city, she'd be paid for that.

That had been a week ago. Now that he'd finished his paperwork for the afternoon, he was watching her work. Still only a small portion of the wall was covered, and that was just the rough outline. It could take her a year or more to finish, he realized.

If somebody asked, Gaara would not have been able to tell them why he felt strangely pleased by that.

…

"Aya-chan, why do you have so much paint?"

Hiro Nakamura watched curiously as his older sister followed him cautiously, balancing a stack of paint cans that hid her face.

"Because the first day, I didn't bring enough and I had to walk all the way back home to get another one. And also, I talked to the people in the Kazekage building, and they're letting me leave the paint there so I don't have to carry it every day. So I figured I'd stock up. There's nobody coming, is there?" Aya asked, the paint stack wavering. If she crashed into someone, it would be disaster.

Hiro looked, but the early-morning sidewalk was empty. Most of Suna's people were still asleep, waiting until the chill had released its grip on the air. They preferred heat to cold, and that was perfectly logical. It was a desert, after all.

The Nakamura siblings walked in silence for a while, Hiro bounding in front of his older sister, running back, then running away again. Ever since their parents died in the War, when Hiro was only two, Aya had been taking care of him and both were happy that way. Aya had mourned her parent's passing, though Hiro was still too young to understand, but she adjusted, and she still had Hiro. And that was all the family she needed.

"Hey Aya, do you think I could be a ninja?"

Aya shifted the paint cans in her arms to look down at her brother, who was now walking by her side. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because I want to be."

Aya nodded slowly, turning her face back to the paint cans and shutting her eyes. _'Okay. Breathe, Aya. You knew this might happen. Mom and Dad were ninjas. It's only natural Hiro might want to be like them. Be rational about this. He could be a strong ninja. Mom and Dad were strong, so he should've inherited that. He won't even get missions for a few years if he becomes one…'_

"Why do you want to be a ninja, Hiro?" She asked.

"Because I want to be a hero! I want to be like Mom and Dad and the Kazekage!"

Aya had to smile a little at her brother's enthusiasm. Actually, she'd been suspicious about his ninja ambitions for a while. All the little pictures he drew in her sketchbook were of kunai and shuriken and famous ninjas (even though it was hard to tell who, or sometimes even what, they were.)

"And plus, when I'm a ninja, I can look after you instead of you looking after me!"

Aya smiled and shifted the paint cans to ruffle her brother's hair. "You're still a little small for that, kiddo. You do know that you'd have to go to the Academy and train very, very hard if you want to be a ninja?"

Hiro pouted. "I know that! I can do it, and I can prove it! Watch, I'll carry your paint!"

He then jumped up on a bench and grabbed the top two cans of paint, staggering under their weight. "Just watch! I'll carry them all the way there!"

"Hiro… we _are _there." Aya said, suppressing a smile and standing in front of the wall.

Hiro's face fell. "Awww…"

"But, it you leave one of those cans here, you can help carry the rest across the street to the Kazekage building. They're letting me keep them in a janitor closet on the first floor, so it's not too far."

Before she even finished explaining, Hiro dropped one of the cans and sprinted across the street. "Hurry up Aya! You're too slow!"

The brunette rolled her eyes and followed her little brother. "Not so fast, Hiro! I need to show you which closet we're keeping the paint in."

They entered the cool, tiled lobby of the Kazekage building, Hiro bouncing on ahead of them. The woman working at the front desk looked up and smiled at them.

"Good morning, Aya. So they finally let you start the mural?"

"Yeah, and they're letting me store the paint here, too. Can you tell me which way it is to janitor closet A3?"

"Just down that hall, actually. It's third door on your left." She said, pointing to the hall behind her desk.

"Okay, thanks!" Aya walked around the desk and found the door. "Hiro, can you open the door for me?"

"Okay!" He exclaimed, setting his paint down and swinging the door open so quickly it almost hit Aya. She laughed.

"Maybe not so fast, little buddy. We're not trying to kill anyone."

Hiro just grinned.

Aya stepped inside and found a deserted corner behind a mop and two brooms. She stacked the paint up there, making sure it wouldn't get in anyone's way. The last thing she wanted was complaining janitors and going back to carrying two cans of paint every day.

"Okay, Hiro, let's… Hiro?"

She looked around frantically, but the little eight-year-old wasn't in the hallway anymore. "Hiro?" Aya whirled around, but he wasn't hiding in the closet either. _'Oh my god… I've just lost my little brother… in the Kazekage building! This is not goooood…'_

"Are you _really_ the Kazekage?"

Aya breathed a huge sigh of relief when she heard Hiro's voice, barely twenty feet away in the lobby. It was followed by a wave of shock when she saw who he was talking too, followed quickly by a sensation of drowning in nervousness and embarrassment.

"Yes, I am."

Hiro was standing in front of none other than the Kazekage himself and his famous puppet-master brother, staring up at them in wonder. Aya thought she was going to faint.

_'Oh god… I think I would rather have lost him instead…' _

"Woooooww…"

Aya hurried down the hall. "Hiro, what're you doing?" She asked, thankful that she could at least stop her voice from shaking. _'Why did he have to find the _Kazekage_? Why? Of all people, why?'_

Both men and the one boy looked up as Aya hurried over, taking Hiro's hand.

"Aya, guess what? He's really the Kazekage!"

"Haha, yeah, I can see that," Aya said nervously, glancing up at him _'Tall and imposing, anyone? At least he doesn't look annoyed…'_ Actually, the Kazekage and his brother were both smiling slightly. "Maybe we should leave the Kazekage alone, Hiro, he's probably got a lot of work to do…"

But her little brother didn't seem to be listening. "Didja know my sister is painting a mural? You're in it!"

Aya felt her face start burning and she wished she could crawl under a rock and die of embarrassment. It was one thing to be painting the mural, it was another to have her little brother running around telling the _most powerful man in the village_ that he was, in fact, in it.

"Oh, so _you're_ the muralist," The paint-sporting brother said. "I saw your design. It's pretty cool."

"Aha, really?" Aya asked, forcing herself to smile _'At least _act_ like you're normal, idiot!'_ She yelled at herself in her head. "You think so?"

"Yeah. Looks like it's going to be a real pain to paint, though."

The muralist shrugged. "Eh, I like painting," She tightened her grip on Hiro's hand. "Speaking of painting, we should probably be going." She folded her hands in front of her and bowed, nudging Hiro with her foot to do the same. "Kazekage-sama, Kankuro-sama."

Hiro bowed too, and quickly straightened up to look up at the Kazekage again. "I want to be a ninja, just like you! I think you're the coolest ninja ever!"

Gaara's eyes went wide for a second, but they returned to normal so fast it was almost impossible to tell

"Hiro!" Aya called from the doorway. "Come on!"

"Bye Kazekage-sama!" Hiro said, running over to Aya and taking her hand.

Just as they were leaving, Aya looked over her shoulder and smiled at him.

…

Gaara looked out his window, down at the spreading mural on the wall. The muralist – finally, she had a name – was opening another can of paint with her little brother running in circles around her.

"Nee-chan, nee-chan, watch me! I'm gonna be a ninja some day!" The little boy, Hiro, was yelling. Aya was smiling and turning in circles, trying to keep up with the boy as he jumped from the sidewalk to the bench to the sidewalk again.

Regretfully, Gaara turned away from the window. So the muralist was keeping her paints in the building? Once again, Gaara found himself strangely happy for a reason he didn't know.

And then he saw how much the stack in his inbox had grown, and his shoulders drooped.

…

Aya worked all morning, spreading the mural further along the bottom of the building. _'This really is going to take a while,'_ She thought, wiping the sweat from her forehead and taking a drink of all-too-warm water. _'I wish I had some shade. Or cold water. Maybe I should bring a cooler tomorrow.'_

The heat, however, seemed no problem for Hiro. He had made friends with some kids who lived nearby, and they were playing a ball game in park down the street. Every so often, he'd come running back over to Aya, have a drink of water, and then run off. The kid had limitless energy.

_'I guess he would make a good ninja. His stamina's already at freakish levels.'_ Aya turned back to painting, frowning at the wall as she carefully maneuvered the brush to get a stroke just the way she wanted. _'Good thing Suna opened a ninja academy recently. I think the next enrollment is in June…maybe if he really wants to do it, I could sign him up.' _Aya looked up from her work and back at her little brother, who was chasing the ball across the street. She smiled as he gave it an enormous kick, sending it sailing over his friends' heads and through the swing set.

"Aya? Is that you?"

Once again, Aya was distracted from her work and looked up sharply. A familiar looking, dark blue-haired girl with pale lavender eyes was watching her shyly. Aya's mouth dropped open.

"Hinata?"

The girl nodded.

Aya set her paintbrush down and ran over to hug her friend. They had met in the six weeks at the end of the War, and in that short time the muralist had become good friends with the shy kunoichi. Even though they hadn't seen each other for six years, they'd kept in touch through letters. But Aya had never suspected Hinata would turn up in Suna so suddenly.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were in Konoha!"

"Lady Hokage sent me as an ambassador. I'm supposed to give aid at the ninja academy here, and help supervise the Chuunin exams."

Aya grinned. "Does that mean you'll be staying for a while?"

Hinata nodded.

"Great! If you don't have a place to stay, you can stay with me and Hiro! We have extra room."

Hinata's eyes widened. "Oh, I don't want to be any trouble…"

Aya waved her hand dismissively. "Pssh, trouble? What trouble? It'll be fun! Our apartment isn't quite as grand as the Hyuuga compound, but it'll do. C'mon pleeeease?"

"Well… I guess…"

"Great!" Aya punched the air. Then she paused. "Wait a minute… something's off here…" Then her mouth dropped open. "Hinata, have you stopped stuttering?"

The shy Konoha kunoichi bobbed her head.

"Great! Even better! I knew you could do it Hinata!"

The Hyuuga smiled, fiddling with something on her finger. "There's something else I wanted to tell you, Aya… I would've told you in a letter, but I knew I was coming here soon so I wanted to tell you in person."

"What? What? What?" Aya asked eagerly.

"Well… you remember Naruto, right?"

"Of course! Who could forget _him_?" Aya said. "Didn't he ask you out when the war was over?"

Hinata nodded. "Well…" She said, smiling, and held out her hand. On her ring finger was a thin silver band with a lavender stone set into it.

Aya's mouth dropped open. "Is that what I think it is?"

Hinata nodded again.

Aya jumped up and down, clapping her hands, and then hugged the lavender-eyed kunoichi again. "Oh, Hinata, that's wonderful! When are you getting married?"

"Sometime next year. We haven't set the date yet." The Hyuuga's smile was small and bashful, but anyone could see she was practically glowing with happiness.

"Do you know her, Hinata?"

Aya looked around the blue-haired girl to see a tall man with black hair in a spiky ponytail and a Konoha forehead protector, a woman with sandy blonde hair in four pigtails, and a little, four-year-old girl with spiky black hair standing behind them. The little girl was swinging from her parents' hands, kicking her feet above the ground and smiling.

The muralist recognized the woman immediately, and hurriedly folded her hands and bowed. "Temari-sama!" _'What is this? Aya-has-up-close-encounters-with-very-important-people Day?'_

The blonde woman smirked. "Well, it's good to see I haven't been forgotten yet." She said, swinging her arm slightly and making the little girl giggle.

"Temari, Shikamaru, this Aya Nakamura. She's the girl I met at the end of the war." Hinata said. "Aya, this is Shikamaru Nara, Shikako Nara, and, well, I guess you already know who Temari is."

Aya bowed again. "I'm honored to meet you."

Temari laughed. "Oh, you don't have to be so formal. If you're a friend of Hinata's, then you're our friend, too."

"But…" Aya began, _'You're the Kazekage's sister? You're one of the most powerful kunoichi alive? Force of habit?' _

Temari was already waving her head dismissively before Aya could chose how she wanted to finish her sentence. "No buts. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go find my little brothers." She waved at the two kunoichi and walked away, tugging her little daughter's hand. "Come on, Shikako, time to go find Uncle Kankuro and Uncle Gaara!"

Shikamaru nodded at them, then followed his wife and child across the street into the Kazekage building.

Aya sighed and sat down heavily on the bench, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. _'To many. Important people. For one day.'_

**A/N: Yes, I know I probably shouldn't be trying to juggle two fics, but this one popped into my head and I know exactly how I want it to go (I'm still working on details for 'The Middle') so I had to write it. It'll probably update more often than 'The Middle', though I'm about halfway through another chapter of that. Writer's block's a bitch.**


	2. And so it Begins

Chapter Two

_Dear Mom and Dad_

_Sorry I haven't written to you in so long. I've been really busy. After all this time, I finally got around to painting that mural I always talked about. That's right, I did it. Actually, the project got approved faster than I expected. The Kazekage must not be very busy._

_Speaking of the Kazekage, we actually met him today. Me and Hiro that is. It just so happens that he and his brother were coming into the building just as I was putting my paints in the closet they're letting me use. The Kazekage is sort of Hiro's idol, so of course he ran off the minute he noticed, behaving in that shocked and awed _oh my god the Kazekage is actually in the Kazekage building._ Proceeded to embarrass me – not that I can really blame him, after all, it's not every day you meat the leader of your village and your hero, is it? And anyway, I'm a pretty easy person to embarrass. _

_Hiro wants to be a ninja. He told me today, even though I think I've sort of known for a while. It's all kind of scary, but I know you two loved what you did, and I think you'd be proud of Hiro. I'll probably enroll him in the academy when registrations open up again, so at least that's not for a while. It'll be strange without him around always getting under my feet. He's hyper and scarily fast just like you, dad. Maybe even more. I guess Hiro got all the ninja genes I missed out on._

_Oh, and Hinata's back. She's helping with our ninja academy, and she's staying with me and Hiro. You'd like her. She's smart, kind, and a very powerful kunoichi. Oh, and she's engaged to the man that pretty much _everyone_ knows is a shoo-in as the Leaf's next Hokage._

_Other than that, there's not much to say. I guess I'll talk to you later, then._

_With love,_

_Aya_

The muralist put down her pen and shut the notebook, sticking it safely back on the shelf alongside five other notebooks filled with similar entries. She new it was probably trivial, but she liked writing to her parents, even if she could never send the letters. At first, it had been her way of coping with their deaths. But now that she'd adjusted, she wasn't sure why she kept it up. Old habits die hard, she supposed.

Hiro was already asleep, and so was Hinata. That left Aya with the house to herself, and no will to sleep. Even though she knew she would be tired in the morning, if she went to bed now she'd just end up lying awake and staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night.

However, there was one option that never failed her.

Grabbing a fleece-lined hoodie to ward of the desert night's cold, Aya quickly wrote out a note for Hinata and Hiro in case one of them should wake up before she was back.

Stepping out into the chilly night, Aya made sure the door was locked securely behind her before strolling away into the darkness, hands shoved into her pockets. Most of Suna was asleep by now, and Aya thanked her lucky stars that she was in a good neighborhood, or she wouldn't have been able to go for these walks. Even though Suna was the safest it had been in years, there were still criminals. Usually she didn't leave Hiro alone even though their house was safe, but since Hinata was there, Aya was comfortable being away for an hour or so. After all, Hinata was probably _more _qualified to fight off any hypothetical bad guys breaking into the house than she was.

She didn't even realize it until she was halfway there, but her feet were already carrying her back on the familiar path to the mural. Breath misting in tiny crystalline clouds and drifting away in front of her, Aya bowed her head and watched her feet move across the sidewalk. She didn't really know when it had happened, but she had someone developed the habit of always looking at the ground when she walked, even at night when the sun wasn't beating down. Within minutes, she found herself staring up at the white wall, with what looked like just squiggles of black paint spreading themselves from the lower right corner. Looking at it from the perspective of an outsider, Aya realized that it wasn't even possible to tell what they were yet. She sighed, a great translucent cloud dissipating into the air.

Although she hadn't really settled on where and what she wanted to paint until recently, Aya had wanted to paint a mural for a long time. Even when she was a baby, apparently. There must've been hundreds of photos of her caught in the act of drawing on the walls.

_"Watch out, Hiroshi, this one's going to be a graffiti artist some day!"_

Her mother's voice echoed across her memory, one of the first things she could remember her mother saying. Out of all of them, this was the moment that stuck out in her memory.

_She was four years old, sitting contently on the carpet with capped and uncapped markers spread out in a chaotic halo around her. Carefully, she selected which color she was going to use next, debating between a pretty shade of blue or a pale violet. Which would look better for the girl's shirt? Aya picked blue, scribbling the color into the sloppy stick figure she'd drawn of a girl playing a ball game with her friends. Sitting back, the four-year-old tapped her face, smearing even more marker across her skin and nodded happily. Perfect._

_Now for the swing set. She already drawn the sandbox (not that they really needed a box in Suna) the see-saw, the ball court, and herself, sitting off to the side and drawing in the dirt with her finger as she liked to do. The only thing missing were the swings, and that little red-haired boy who was always sitting there. A few times, Aya had thought about approaching him, but she was content to draw little squiggles (art, in her mind) in the dirt, by herself. Aya liked being by herself._

_"What's this, Aya?"_

_The girl looked up over her shoulder, smiling when she saw her mother. "I'm making a mua!" She announced, mispronouncing the word she'd heard her father use to describe her art._

_Her mother sighed, shaking her head and smiling tiredly. "Okay, Aya. But remember you have to clean it up when you're done."_

_Aya nodded and went back to her art. Her parents had long ago given up on preventing her from drawing on the walls, instead putting it on her to clean up after herself. There was nothing wrong with her having a little fun so long as she took responsibility, they figured. _

_Aya's mother sat down next to her, examining what she was drawing. "Who are these?" She asked, pointing to the children playing ball as Aya started on the swing set (barely recognizable for what it was when draw by an inexperienced four-year-old.)_

_Aya shrugged. "Kids."_

_"Are you playing with them?"_

_Aya huffed and shook her head, pointing herself out. "That's me. I'm drawing."_

_"Oh." Her mother said, and looked down at her daughter. "Don't you want to play with the other kids?"_

_Aya shook her head violently, short brown hair whipping into her face with every swing. "No. I like drawing. And I don't like them."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because they're mean. They push each other around and make fun of each other. And they laugh when someone gets hurt." Aya was once again examining the markers. What color of red should she use for the boy's hair? It was very bright, but not quite as bright as the markers she had. Realizing she had no choice, Aya pouted and settled for maroon, passing up her dried-out fire engine red. _

_"They might not be so bad," Her mother said, knowing her daughter's tendency to exaggerate things. "Don't you want to make friends, Aya?"_

_Aya shrugged. "I don't need to. I have you and dad."_

Aya smiled, her eyes slightly moist at the memory, but not from sadness. True, it hurt that her parents were gone, but they would've wanted her to remember the good times and get on with her life.

_'Graffiti artist, huh mom? Well, you weren't too far off…'_

They would've been proud. She could just imagine what they would be saying. Her father would be saying something along the lines of "I told you so" (even though he always jokingly said that no daughter of his was going to graffiti the city) and then he would probably go and brag to people he didn't even know that _his_ daughter was painting Suna's first mural. The first officially government sanctioned wall art, standing out from the graffiti littering the buildings (some of which really was due to Aya.) Her mother would just smile and probably frame a picture of Aya painting next to her wall-drawing, and the time she'd come home covered in spray paint when she was twelve (boy had she caught hell for that.)

And they would've been proud of Hiro, too. They would be overjoyed that he wanted to follow in their footsteps, and would probably have trained him themselves. Even though they really did want their children to pick for themselves, Aya knew they always wondered why she'd picked civilian. Neither of them could imagine going through life unable to throw a shuriken or do even simple chakra control.

"What are you doing?"

"Yah!" Aya jumped and whirled around, heart suddenly pounding in her throat. Someone had snuck up behind her, and she hadn't even heard a sound.

And then she realized there was a very good reason she hadn't heard anything.

Silent movement _would_ be child's play for a Kage, after all.

"Kazekage-sama!" She cried, folding her hands and bowing quickly. "I didn't hear you come up!"

After a few seconds, she straightened up and stood awkwardly, hands behind her back and fiddling with the end of her hoodie. _'Twice. Twice in one day. Okay, stupid coincidence, what are you playing at here?'_

"What are you doing?" The Kazekage repeated with a slight frown. "You shouldn't be out alone so late."

"Um, I was just, er, going for a walk… and I somehow ended up here."

The Kazekage nodded. "You might want to be more careful where you walk."

Aya blinked, confused. "Huh? But isn't this the safest place in all of Suna?"

By way of answer, the Kazekage looked pointedly across the street, to where two men, swaying drunkenly, were slowly backing away. When they saw him look their way, they turned and broke into a stumbling run in the opposite direction. He turned back to Aya. "Those two came out of that alley and were heading towards you when I came out of the building. I don't think they wanted to have a friendly chat."

"Oh." Aya said softly, going slightly pale. "I guess that was close."

Again, the red-haired Kage nodded. Then, out of the blue, he asked, "Where do you live?"

"Huh?" Aya asked, mouth gaping slightly. "What was that?"

It could've just been her imagination, but she thought she saw the corner of the Kazekage's mouth twitch slightly upward. "Where do live?"

"Uh, that way… direction… place." Aya said, pointing in the general direction of her house. "About five minutes from here. Why?"

"Because I'm going to walk you home."

Now Aya's jaw was practically hitting the sidewalk. _'Okay Aya, see, this is why you should sleep. Because when you don't, you have impossible hallucinations about the Kazekage walking you home. I will never skip sleep again.'_

The Kazekage walked away in the direction she'd pointed, then turned and looked back at her. "Well? Are you coming?"

Aya snapped out of her trance and hurried after the Kazekage, who started walking again as soon as she'd caught up. "Uh, Kazekage-sama, you don't have to… I mean, I don't want to be any trouble…"

"It's not trouble. My job is to keep the people of this village safe. That includes you, right?"

"I guess…" Aya said.

They walked in silence for a while, neither saying anything and neither feeling the need to. Unlike some silences, it wasn't at all awkward. But it only lasted for about two minutes, because then the Kazekage decided to start a conversation.

"So what made you want to paint a mural?"

"Huh?" Aya said, and immediately wanted to slap herself. _'Yeah, Aya. Go ahead, look stupid.'_

"You're the muralist, right?" The Kazekage asked, turning his face to look at her. "Aya Nakamura?"

"Um, yeah. There are a lot of reasons." Aya looked at the ground again, thinking. "Well, I guess, for one, I always wanted to paint a mural. When I was a little kid, I was always drawing on the walls whenever I could get my hands on a marker. Even when my parents took me to the playground, I just sat down somewhere and doodled in the dirt."

For some reason, the last phrase tickled something in the back of Gaara's mind. Hadn't there been a girl who was always drawing in the dirt at the playground when he was a kid? That couldn't have been the muralist, could it?

Aya was talking again. "Also, I think whenever people visit Suna, they only see boring shades of brown. I wanted to show them that it could be beautiful, too, even if the only thing to see for miles is sand and cacti. It can be just as pretty as the forest, or the mountains, but it's just more subtle. You have to look closely to catch it."

Aya was happy to see the Kazekage nodding. _'I can't believe this. I am having. A conversation. With the _Kazekage_. I think I might just take a page out of Hinata's book and faint.'_

She jerked herself out of her thought when she realized that the Kazekage was speaking. "That's a good idea. I know some people have been less than happy with the village since the War. A mural might help them remember what there families were fighting to protect."

_'Mom and Dad._' Aya thought. _'This is what Mom and Dad were protecting. This is what Hiro wants to protect.'_ "Yeah… that's it exactly." Aya said. "I heard that Leaf built a monument to commemorate their dead, so I thought, I might not be able to build a monument, but I can at least do this."

Gaara glanced sideways at the muralist, walking along silently now with her arms wrapped around herself. She was staring at the ground again, her hair forming a curtain around her face. The position looked natural on her, almost familiar. Maybe she _was_ the dirt-drawing girl.

Aya turned left down a side street, lined by brown apartment buildings and houses. They walked in silence the rest of the way to her building, a light brown sandstone (like almost every building in Suna), and Aya fumbled in her pocket for her key.

"Well…uh… thanks," She said. "For making sure I got here."

The Kazekage just nodded.

"Goodnight," She said, and turned, hurrying up to the door. By the time she got inside and glanced back out, the Kazekage was already gone.

* * *

><p>"AYAAAAA! IT'S TIME TO WAKE UUUUUP! I'M HUNGRY!"<p>

Hiro frowned at the lump under the covers that was his older sister as she curled up even more tightly. That just would not do, he thought, and backed out of the room, only to hurtle back in moments later and make a flying leap onto the bed.

"Wake up Aya!" He yelled in her ear. "Wake up!"

A muffled voice came from beneath the sheets as Aya fought her way out, finally poking her head out, glaring, tangled hair falling into her eyes.

"Go away, Hiro, I'm sleeping." She muttered.

"But I'm hungry!"

"_Sleeping_."

"But Aya," He said, with all the seriousness that an eight-year-old could muster. "It's already eight o'clock. You said you wanted to be at the mural by seven."

The change was instant. Aya sat bolt upright, looked wildly over the clock, and then dashed out of the room. Hiro stood in the doorway, watching his sister race back and forth, putting toast in the toaster, rushing into the bathroom to brush her teeth, rushing back out to change, into the kitchen for the toast, sticking a piece in his mouth as she ran by again.

"Hurry up, Hiro!" She said. "Go get your shoes!"

The door to the guest bedroom opened just as Aya ran by again, and a yawning Hinata stepped out, only to jump back swiftly to avoid being run over. She stared wide-eyed after her friend, and the glanced over at Hiro. "Is she always like this?" The white-eyed kunoichi asked.

Hiro shook his head, munching happily on his toast. "No." He said, a few crumbs falling to the floor. "Only when she oversleeps."

"Hiro, shoes! And don't talk with your mouth full. Morning, Hinata!" The muralist gasped out as she sprinted by them again, headed back into her room.

Hinata stared after her, watching as she hurried by again, grabbing Hiro's hand and dragging him out the door with a hasty goodbye.

Only ten minutes after she'd woken up, Aya and Hiro reached the mural. It was already hot, and Aya ruefully remembered that she'd forgotten the water cooler she'd intended to bring in her rush to get back to work. Hiro didn't seem to have any problem with it – only briefly griping that the other kids were sure to have started playing without him. He ran off to join them as soon as they arrived, leaving Aya to traipse across the street and retrieve her paints by herself.

"Good morning, Reika," She called to the receptionist.

"Ah, Aya!" Reika said, smiling. "I see you finally made it. Closet A3 is still that way." She said, gesturing to the hall behind her as Aya headed off to the left.

"Oh, right. Thanks." Aya said with a laugh, quickly correcting her heading. "I overslept this morning, I guess it must be getting to me."

"Oh, it happens to all of us," Reiko said. "Did I ever tell you about the one day my alarm clock broke and I didn't make it to work until ten?"

Aya laughed. "No, but it must be an interesting story."

"Not quite the word I'd used to describe it," Reika said as Aya opened the closet and pulled her paints out. "Maybe something along the lines of harrowing… blood-chilling… I caught hell from the entire building, because no one was here to make the coffee. I guess some of those elite jounin don't know how to press a few buttons."

"That I can believe. Both my parents were ninjas, and they fumbled even the simplest of cooking. I lived off canned soup, microwave meals, and peanut butter and jelly until I was nine and tall enough to reach the stove."

"I guess there must not be room next to all the jutsus for the basic stuff. Have a nice day, Aya!" She called as the muralist headed out the door.

"You too!"

The rest of the day passed normally. Aya managed to extended the lines until she had the entire bottom length of the mural covered. Now all that was left was all that blank, empty white space representing possible weeks of more outlining. And a ladder. A very tall ladder. With a sigh, she dipped her brush back into the paint and continued outlining the buildings. It still wasn't recognizable as anything, but this did faze Aya since she knew (or at least, hoped very strongly) that it would be soon. Soon translating to maybe a month at minimum. Aya sighed again.

"That's coming along nicely," Hinata said, walking up beside Aya.

Aya half-smiled. "Thanks. What do you see so far?"

"…Lines."

"I thought so. It's still in the very early stages." Aya said, executing another long brushstroke that, someday soon, would form the side of a building.

"I'm sure it will be very nice when it's done." Hinata said. "I have to go do some last-minute planning for the exam before the teams start arriving tomorrow, but maybe after that you, Hiro, and I can get lunch."

It was at precisely that moment that Aya realized that she could indeed feel hunger gnawing away at her belly. "Sure," She said, as her stomach grumbled. "I'm sure Hiro would like that, too. But be warned, he will _bombard_ you with questions about being a ninja. He wants to be one, too."

Hinata laughed softly. "Alright then, I should be done in about an hour. See you then!"

* * *

><p>Temari and Kankuro were standing by a window just outside Gaara's office, looking down at the Muralist turning back to her work as Hinata walked away. They were deep in conversation, whispering about matters of utmost secrecy while Temari tried to stop Shikako from completely soaking herself in chocolate ice cream, quieting whenever someone walked by.<p>

"The council wouldn't like it, you know," Temari was saying, "And besides, isn't it a bit of a stretch to even be guessing about this?"

"Not really," Kankuro said. "This is _Gaara_ we're talking about Temari. Interested for him means a glance lasting longer than five seconds. It must be about twenty times I've seen him watching her now, counting before we knew she wanted to paint the mural."

Temari raised her eyebrows, absently wiping Shikako's face with a napkin as the little girl tried to squirm away. "Really…" She looked back out the window. "Even I have to admit that _has _to mean something."

"And I haven't even told you the best part yet," Kankuro said with smirk.

"And what would that be?" Finally satisfied that her daughter's face was clean, Temari let Shikako go.

"She showed up at the mural late last night, and Gaara walked her home."

Temari's eyebrows should rightfully have been disappearing into her hairline by now. She didn't say anything.

"_And_ he actually _talked_ to her."

Temari's momentary look of glee was suddenly replaced by a frown as the full meaning of Kankuro's words dawned on her. "Kankuro… did you _follow_ them?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Idiot!" Temari hissed, swatting him upside the head. "You're not supposed to do that!"

"Owwwwwww," Kankuro whined, nursing the bump that he could now feel forming on the side of his head. "What was that for?"

"You're not supposed to follow them!"

"Well I didn't see that stopping _you_ when you set him up on that date with that one jounin clan-heiress, whats-her-face!" Kankuro continued to whine while still keeping his voice as low as possible.

"That – that was different!" Temari sputtered. "I actually set that up, I had a right! Besides, it failed anyway," Temari muttered under her breath. "He barely said a word all through dinner."

"Alright then, mistress of matchmaking," Kankuro said. "How do you propose we handle this one? We are going to try to set them up, right?"

"Pffft. Of course," Temari said. "I'm just waiting for the opportunity to present itself."

No sooner had Temari finished her sentence then the door of the office next to them opened and Gaara stepped out, a few files hanging from one hand. Temari and Kankuro quickly shut their mouths and tried to look as casual as possible as he looked over at them, frowning.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" They chorused.

**A/N: … Heh. Yeah. Sooooo, that was a late update. Sort of. OKAY IT WAS REALLY LATE. I'll try to update more often.**

**Don't you just love Kankuro and Temari?**


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